Sino-Cuba energy relations raise concern in Washington

As a frail Fidel Castro recuperates from gastrointestinal surgery, his fellow comrades in Havana have moved forward with a bilateral agreement to conduct oil and gas exploration operations with communist China in the Gulf of Mexico.

While the Bush administration watches from afar in stoic silence, massive deep sea drilling platforms manned by employees of China’s state-controlled oil company Sinopec and Cuba’s government-owned CubaPetroleo bore deep into the earth’s crust in an attempt to secure the Gulf’s vast energy reserves.

For China, the budding energy partnership with Cuba comes at a critical time.
Monsters and Critics